Don’t let the sound of your own feet drive you crazy

I’ve taken on and accomplished another event that I had never dreamed of doing before: a triathlon… albeit a short one.  As a local benefit, a triathlon was held starting at the Cottage Grove Pool.  Truthfully, I had to be drawn into the competition, I was initially hesitant about having to swim, bike and run… but after insults were thrown my way, my status as a man questioned; the reasoning finally took hold.

I showed up at the race about an hour early, thankfully, I had two buddies to endure the pain and embarrassment: Ricky and Garrett.  We stood around, making assumptions about how hard the swimming portion of the event would be, citing ourselves as the first to be carted away via ambulance.  There were two portions to this race: long and short.  We, being the manly muscle-bound, testosterone infused men that we are decided that we should compete in the short race; unlike Ricky’s wife, Eryn, who tackled the long race.  We watched Eryn and the other Grovers we knew start the swimming and then out onto their bikes.

From there, we got to our start positions in the short (the race officials called it “novice”) group.  Flanked by our fierce competitors, we stood ready to take on their quest for glory, to claim it for themselves, to deny us.  Through eyes, slitted with passion and contempt, we knew our duty.  We eyeballed each of the triathletes individually; those little kids and elderly old women took notice, I assure you.  From the starting buzzer, I was the first in the pool followed by Ricky, Garrett and the two elderly women that were behind us.  For at least two of the laps I was in the lead until some little kid passed me up and eventually one of the elderly ladies passed me on a turn but that was alright by me because I was drafting her… until she pulled away.

When I had two laps to go, a friend’s five year-old daughter came to the edge of the pool as I neared the end of a lap, I stood up and raised my hand because I thought I was about receive a high-five.  Instead, I got a question, “Why’d you shave your beard?”  I laughed to myself through the next lap, I think I aspirated a little pool water because of it.

After my quarter mile swim in the parking lot, my shirt was back on, shoes and socks slid back into place, I was out of the pool and to my bike. I hopped on and took on the three mile ride through Cottage Grove.  Right out of the gate, I flew past one competitor, of course, she was eight and her chain had fallen off but progress nonetheless!  Down the backside of the loop, I was picking up speed passing one little kid after another and even one adult (who may or may not have been in the race), I pulled into the transition area.

My lungs still seizing from the swim, I dropped my bike and starting running down the hill to the chants of, “Go Wells!” from high school students, at which point I realized that they probably saw me running out to my bike from the pool without my shirt off, as desperately as I wanted to stop to explain that those things may look like lovehandles but in reality that’s where I kept my wallet, keys, cellphone, my snackables, and checkbook; nevertheless, I plodded on.  Down the street, up around the old high school and its various fields I found myself at the end of my one mile run with an overall time of 35:28… trouncing half of the geriatrics and incoming fifth graders.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 9:48 pm and is filed under random whine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.